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1.1.7-Kingedmundsroyalmurder
Brick!club day 7: of faith, bandits, and Divine providence Right, so in chapter 7 M. Bienvenu risks life and limb to go spread the Word to a poor isolated community of shepherds and finds that the Lord uses the strangest of servants to carry out His will. Frankly, I could just leave it at that, since that’s what Hugo seems to want us to get out of it (well, that and pointed comments on materialism and the redistribution of wealth) and everyone else has already said pretty much what I picked up on. But I appear to be utterly incapable of being concise so I suspect I’ll find things to say as I go. So Hugo starts by saying that he’s telling us this story because it will further illuminate the Bishop’s character. I’m not sure I buy that, since it seems to reinforce everything we already know without adding anything new. The Bishop is stubborn, the Bishop is kind, the Bishop is convinced that God is on his side and will keep him safe, the Bishop is invariably right in this belief. (Sarah1281 referred to him as the anti-Bousset, which I kind of love.) I suppose to that list we should also add: the Bishop is almost aggressively unconcerned with his own personal safety and also the Bishop does what he wants (and gets away with it because he is also kind and good and respected and all that). Is it just me, or is the way the Bishop describes the mountain community kind of patronizing? I won’t quote the entire paragraph because I don’t want to translate it and I don’t have an English translation on hand but his description seems to paint them as all simple and pleasant and almost childlike. He’s describing a community of adults and what he chooses to describe is their pretty colored string and the way they frolic on the mountaintops playing the flute. It just bugs me. (And smells a little of the romanticization of peasant/country life as simpler and purer and all that, which is possibly my biggest pet peeve ever. Blame it on the anthropologist and city girl in me.) Also this is probably just because that’s how my brain works, but this bit: “Eux aussi doivent avoir besoin qu’on leur parle du bon Dieu” (They bandits too must need someone to speak to them of God) made me think of Dumbledore. It’s that “everyone can be redeemed” mentality, which is certainly not a bad thing and actually quite commendable but both Dumbledore and the Bishop seem prone to putting the redemption of the wicked above the practical needs of the people who rely on them (i.e. the Bishop potentially being killed and causing his sister and Mme. Magloire to lose the majority of their income or leaving his doors open all in the name of helping and saving the condemned.) More snark from the Bishop, upon being asked what he’ll do if he meets the bandits: “Je leur demanderai l’aumône pour mes pauvres.” (I will ask for charity for my poor people.) An echo of an earlier chapter when it was noted that when he had money he went to the poor and when he had no money he went to the rich instead. So a quick search shows me that the Te Deum that he wanted to sing is a hymn of praise and thanksgiving, usually sung after a great event like a new pope or saint or king. It’s also got a whole ritual attache to it, which explains the fuss about material objects. Given that this is Hugo, I assume the choice of this particular hymn is meaningful but the only thing I’m coming up with is that the Bishop finds the triumphs and accomplishments of this small community just as important as the triumphs and accomplishments of the Catholic church or the monarchy, thus warranting the hymn. So basically back to the idea that you start from the bottom up and anyone can be virtuous. That sound right to the scholars among us? True story: the only thing that comes to mind when I read about Cravatte giving the stolen goods to M. Bienvenu is that story that goes around tumblr about someone stealing Mr. Rogers’ car and then returning it with an apology when they realized that it was his. His reputation precedes him? Doeskin-pantaloons basically said what I wanted to say about the idea of divine providence guiding everyone’s actions all the time. If I go into it more it will get into my personal issues and why I don’t actually believe in a God, so let’s move on. I like the bit at the end about what happened to the stolen things and the nature of theft. Because yes, technically, the Bishop did steal those things by not giving them back to their rightful owners. (He does this a lot actually. Carriage and alter money anyone?) Hugo rationalizes it slightly by going, “Volées, elles l’étaient déjà d’ailleurs. La moitié de l’aventure était accomplie; il ne restait plus qu’à changer la direction du vol, et qu’à lui faire faire un petit bout de chemin du côté des pauvres.” (Anyway, they were already stolen. Half the job was done; the only thing left was to change the direction of the theft and send it just a little ways away towards the poor.*) I may come back to this later once I’ve processed it a bit more, but he seems to be saying that, given that the things were already stolen (by someone else) it’s not doing any more harm to send them to the needy. Which sounds suspiciously like rationalizing away behavior that you know is bad, but that is a very human trait. *That’s a very approximate translation, sorry. Commentary Columbina Trying my hand at engaging in discussion ahhh. I’ve seen people do (snip)s before to keep the post a reasonable length - I hope it’s not a rude thing to do! (Tumblr, I’ve been lurking here for nearly three years, but I still don’t understand your etiquette.) Right, so in chapter 7 M. Bienvenu risks life and limb to go spread the Word to a poor isolated community of shepherds and finds that the Lord uses the strangest of servants to carry out His will. Frankly, I could just leave it at that, since that’s what Hugo seems to want us to get out of it (well, that and pointed comments on materialism and the redistribution of wealth) and everyone else has already said pretty much what I picked up on. But I appear to be utterly incapable of being concise so I suspect I’ll find things to say as I go. Also this is probably just because that’s how my brain works, but this bit: “Eux aussi doivent avoir besoin qu’on leur parle du bon Dieu" (They bandits too must need someone to speak to them of God) made me think of Dumbledore. It’s that “everyone can be redeemed” mentality, which is certainly not a bad thing and actually quite commendable but both Dumbledore and the Bishop seem prone to putting the redemption of the wicked above the practical needs of the people who rely on them (i.e. the Bishop potentially being killed and causing his sister and Mme. Magloire to lose the majority of their income or leaving his doors open all in the name of helping and saving the condemned.) The comparison to Dumbledore is super interesting! Because I don’t really like Dumbledore <—- I’m not actually into HP meta enough to provide back up and sources for this, but pretty much everyone acknowledges that no matter how intrinsically good he was, we was still hella manipulative, right? Which is also true of the Bishop and his little white lies (I totally need a carriage, I have no idea where that treasure went, I absolutely gave that man that silver). For all they might be for the Greater Good, he’s still deceiving essentially innocent people, and I’m reluctant to approve of it as strongly as I think Hugo wants me to. It actually goes kind of hand in hand with that blog post link that’s popped up on my dash a couple of times today on the representation of police powers in popular culture, where our good guy police officers are so often held back from catching the bad guys because of silly laws regarding admissibility of evidence or search warrants and have to bend the rules at little to catch their man. This is kind of the other side of that coin, I think. The Bishop ignores the rules of society about, oh, looking after those who depend on you to redeem his man. We read it and we’re like “wow so admirable *__*”, just like we watch police dramas and go “wow so clever *___*” And in both cases, it’s true. It is admirable that the Bishop was less than truthful and as a result, saved lots of lives! It is clever of the police officer to work out how to trick that nasty man into confessing and as a result, save at least a few lives! Both of these people were working within a system that would have let people die. Both of these people didn’t agree with that system and were entirely justified in doing so. But those systems were there for valid reasons! Civil liberties reasons for the police officer, arguably valid (depending on your faith) religious reasons for the ornate vestments of Notre Dame d’Embrun. Still, both characters undeniably did good by subverting the system to do what they felt was right. And I think it makes it pretty clear that with just a few decades difference, the Bishop would have been right there at that barricade. Especially because The Right Thing > Personal Safety and the Safety of Everyone Around Me. So a quick search shows me that the Te Deum that he wanted to sing is a hymn of praise and thanksgiving, usually sung after a great event like a new pope or saint or king. It’s also got a whole ritual attache to it, which explains the fuss about material objects. Given that this is Hugo, I assume the choice of this particular hymn is meaningful but the only thing I’m coming up with is that the Bishop finds the triumphs and accomplishments of this small community just as important as the triumphs and accomplishments of the Catholic church or the monarchy, thus warranting the hymn. So basically back to the idea that you start from the bottom up and anyone can be virtuous. That sound right to the scholars among us? I was wondering about this too, and it came up in conversation this evening with my Maman, who said that it was a regular part of Evensong at her Anglican church when she was young. So now I am very confused as to whether it has always been a fairly common hymn, or whether it has become more common with time. True story: the only thing that comes to mind when I read about Cravatte giving the stolen goods to M. Bienvenu is that story that goes around tumblr about someone stealing Mr. Rogers’ car and then returning it with an apology when they realized that it was his. His reputation precedes him? Wow, this is such a great comparison. I’m not American, so I didn’t have Mr. Rogers growing up, but I gather the general gist of his show from Tumblr. I can totally imagine the Bishop being that guy. Especially because that story (at least when I saw it) was attached to a photo of Mr. Rogers laughing cheerfully while giving a double middle finger, which I think is a perfect summary of the Bishop’s reaction to the senator in the next chapter. Alasse-irena I am glad someone else managed to put their finger on what was bothering me about the description of the peasants in the mountains! I had been puzzling over that.